"I _have_ a right," she asserted. "Your Dilly--he's a perfect love, and I told him so--said I was to make myself perfectly at home. So I have a perfect right to be here, and a perfect right to hunt eggs; and if I could make that sentence more 'perfect,' I would do it." She tilted her head to one side and challenged a laugh with her eyes. Charming Billy relaxed a bit, yanked the horse into a stall and tied him fast. "Yuh might tell me how it happened that you're here," he hinted, looking at her over the saddle. He had apparently forgotten that he had intended leaving the horse saddled until he had rested and eaten--and truly it would be a shame to hurry from so unexpected a tête-à-tête. Miss Bridger pulled a spear of blue-joint hay from a crack in the wall and began breaking it into tiny pieces. "It sounds funny, but Mr. Dill bought father out to get a cook. The way it was, father has been simply crazy to try his luck up in Klondyke; it's just like him to get the fever after everybody else has had it and recovered. When the whole country was wild to go he turned up his nose at the idea. And now, mind you, after one or two whom he knew came back with some gold, he must go and dig up a few million tons of it for himself! Your Dilly is rather bright, do you know? He met father and heard all about his complaint--how he'd go to the Klondyke in a minute if he could only get the ranch and Mama Joy and me off his hands--so what does Dilly do but buy the old ranch and hire Mama Joy and me to come here and keep house! Father, I am ashamed to say, was _abjectly_ grateful to get rid of his incumbrances, and he--he hit the trail immediately." She stopped and searched absently with her fingers for another spear of hay. "Do you know, Mr. Boyle, I think men are the most irresponsible creatures! A _woman_ wouldn't turn her family over to a neighbor and go off like that for three or four years, just chasing a sunbeam. I--I'm horribly disappointed in father. A man has no right to a family when he puts everything else first in his mind. He'll be gone three or four years, and will spend all he has, and we--can shift for ourselves. He only left us a hundred dollars, to use in an emergency! He was afraid he might need the rest to buy out a claim or get machinery or something. So if we don't like it here we'll have to stay, anyway. We--we're 'up against it,' as you fellows say." [Illustration: "WE--WE'RE 'UP AGAINST IT,' AS YOU FELLOWS SAY."] Charming Billy, fumbling the latigo absently, felt a sudden belligerence toward her father. "He ought to have his head punched good and plenty!" he blurted sympathetically. To his amazement Miss Bridger drew herself up and started for the door. "I'm very sorry you don't like the idea of us being here, Mr. Boyle," she replied coldly, "but we happen to _be_ here, and I'm afraid you'll just have to make the best of it!"